A Nixon Ex-Aide Explains

Published: July 20, 2007

Richard M. Nixon's tape-recorded description of me, in a 1972 conversation with Charles Colson, as ''house Jew'' for Nixon's second term was a characteristic piece of cynical Nixonian shorthand.

From the beginning of my service in the Nixon administration in 1969 I was a partisan of Jewish issues, particularly those involving the security of Israel.

As such, I was able to make a substantial contribution to administration policies during the controversies over the Rogers plan and arms deliveries to Israel in 1969 and in the critical days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Of those polices, Israel's prime minister during the war, Golda Meir, later wrote in her autobiography that Israel ''never had a better friend'' in the White House than Nixon.

Notwithstanding the miserable tapes, I believe that I can claim part of the credit for Mrs. Meir's assessment. Leonard Garment